The man that Time Magazine dubbed ‘The Face of Buddhist Terror,’ Leader of the 969 Movement in Myanmar, who is notorious for his anti-Islam rhetoric, Ven. Ashin Wirathu Thera, will be arriving in the island on an invitation by the Bodu Bala Sena (BBS).

BBS General Secretary, Ven. Galagoda Aththe Gnanasara Thera said, “There is no need for a hullabaloo yet. We will let the relevant people know in due course. We have invited him and he will come and we will have a meeting. That is all. The media does not need to know for how long he will stay here.We will plan it and reveal it at the appropriate time.”
BBS Education and Research Unit Chief Coordinator, Chamila Liyanage, said, “Even though the dates are not confirmed yet, he is definitely coming.

“Buddhist countries in the Asiatic region are facing difficulties and even violencerom the Muslims and the other religions in the region. The best example comes from Thailand, Myanmar and Bangladesh. This is the very reason why Ven. Wirathu decided to start the 969 Movement in Myanmar. We visited Thailand and Myanmar and we will be visiting other countries in East Asia. We will definitely be starting an international network with global reach with likeminded Buddhist civil society institutions, Buddhist scholars and Buddhist activist organizations in these countries. With Ven. Wirathu Thera we will be discussing strategic plans for at least a regional network for the time being, for which we need a concrete plan,” he added.

The photo of the two monks above looks innocent enough. One of the men presents the other with a birthday present. It’s difficult to make out, but it looks to be some sort of gold figurine on a red velvet base. In fact, the photo would be totally uninteresting if it weren’t for the fact that these men are two of the world’s most important leaders of a dangerously radical brand of Buddhism.

The man on the right is Burma’s Ashin Wirathu. Known as the “bin Laden of Buddhism,” Wirathu leads the country’s 969 movement, which sees the country’s Muslim minority as an existential threat to its majority Buddhist population. The man on the left is Sri Lanka’s Galagoda Atte Gnanasara, the face of hardline Buddhism in the island nation.

Together, these two robed radicals anchor a powerful, violent, and new political force in Asia.

Over the course of the past three years, Burma’s former military government has embarked on a series of significant democratic reforms, but the departure from military dictatorship has also coincided with a flowering of a radical Buddhist nationalism that has crystallized in communal violence against the country’s Muslim minority. Wirathu has emerged as the public face of that movement, and the monk’s anti-Muslim rhetoric has helped incite attacks on Burma’s Muslim civilians — particularly its ethnic Rohingya — over the past 18 months. Last year, TIME magazine featured Wirathu on its cover under the headline “The Face of Buddhist Terror.”

But Wirathu is not alone in setting out a dangerous new vision for a religion grounded in the principle of non-violence. Gnanasara, who serves as a spiritual leader of sorts, is using his position to stoke the same type of religious bigotry in his home country of Sri Lanka.

Gnanasara is the co-founder of Sri Lanka’s Bodu Bala Sena, or Buddhist Power Force. The group, which was formed in 2012, agitates against what it sees as the threat Islam poses to Sri Lanka’s Sinhalese-Buddhist identity. As in Burma, Muslims in Sri Lanka are a small, largely peaceful minority. But that hasn’t stopped Gnanasara’s group from stoking fears of extremism.

According to a January report by the Associated Press, Buddhists in Sri Lanka have “attacked dozens of mosques and called for boycotts of Muslim-owned businesses and bans on headscarves and halal foods. At boisterous rallies, monks claim Muslims are out to recruit children, marry Buddhist women and divide the country.”

In August 2013, a group of Buddhist monks attacked a mosque in the capital of Colombo. The mob struck the mosque while congregants were engaged in prayer, breaking windows and damaging the building. Both Muslims and Sinhalese Buddhists were injured in the clashes that followed the incident.

The vilification of Muslims is not simply base intolerance; it also serves a convenient purpose for Sri Lanka’s largely Sinhalese powerbrokers. Five years after the end of the civil war with the Tamil Tigers, President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s political machine needs a new scapegoat for the everyday frustrations of their constituents, many of whom have grown unhappy with the government’s heavy-handed security policies and its failure to deliver robust growth. The government seems to be “tacitly encouraging, and in some cases directly supporting, the anti-Muslim campaigns led by militant and often violent Buddhist organizations,” according to a November 2013 Crisis Group report.

If Gnanasara is indeed in Burma — the photos have emerged only on minor Sri Lankan news outlets — his visit comes at a sadly appropriate time. The Burmese government is considering a law governing inter-faith marriage law that would “protect” Buddhist women by requiring their non-Buddhist suitors to convert and gain permission from the women’s parents if they wish to wed. Wirathu has campaigned aggressively in support of the law.

Despite pushback from local activists, public officials in both Sri Lanka and Burma have been loath to challenge Wirathu and Gnanasara. It seems these two men, and the radical brand of Buddhism they represent, are here to stay.

The anti-Muslim rhetoric of Sri Lanka is similar to that of Myanmar, an international panel of experts at a conference on violence in the two countries concluded this week.

Although no one has died in anti-Muslim violence in Sri Lanka, speakers at the March 6 discussion said that the language of hatred is similar to that in Myanmar where hundreds of Rohingya Muslims are reported to have lost their lives.

Held at the Central European University’s School of Public policy in Budapest, “Buddhist Fury: violence against Muslims in Sri Lanka and Myanmar” sought to answer questions on conflict solution, develop policy ideas and share news on the current situation in both countries, with a purpose of releasing a policy paper to help deal with anti-Muslim hatred.

The audience heard that although Muslims make up just 9 percent of Sri Lanka’s population, Buddhists, who number around 70 percent, appear to fear an increase in their population – fears which have also been expressed in Myanmar. But whereas violence in Myanmar has led to hundreds of deaths, attacks in Sri Lanka have been limited to mosques and the removal of Muslim women’s headscarves, with a few people injured.

The Muslim minority expressed concern this week when Sri Lankan leaders of the extremist Bodu Bala Sena group visited Myanmar and met with 969 Movement leaders, extremist monk Ashin Wirathu.
Buddhist mobs in Myanmar have killed more than 200 Muslims and forced more than 150,000 people, mostly Muslims, from their homes. Many Rohingya Muslims now live in large camps in Sittwe, the capital of the Rakhine State in Western Myanmar.

Wirathu has denied any role in the violence, but critics have said that his anti-Muslim preaching has helped to inspire it. Like Bodu Bala Sena, he has criticized the halal slaughter method, and told Buddhists not to do business with Muslims, urging them to seize their land.

The government of Myanmar denies any massacre of Rohingya has taken place. A presidential spokesman, Ye Htut, in a recent interview with The Myanmar Times, described accusations that Rohingya have been persecuted as “baseless.”

The Budapest panel debated different solutions to anti-Muslim violence, among them the involvement of 1991 Nobel Peace Prize winner Myanmar pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi.

Dr Richard Horsey – a Myanmar adviser for both the International Crisis Group and Myanmar Peace Centre – said that Suu Kyi “had used her political capital on other unpopular causes, there is no reason she cannot speak up for the Rohingya.”

Suu Kyi – for long a beacon of the Human Rights community – has been criticized for not playing a role in raising attention to the Rohingya’s plight and easing the hatred.

The panel discussed tactics used by extremist Buddhist groups and how widespread anti-Muslim language had become in the two societies.

Professor Robert Templer, Director of the Centre of Conflict Negotiations and Recovery, asked Richard Reoch, President of Shambala, a Buddhist organization based in London, why are Buddhists killing?

“It comes down to three factors,” answered Reoch. “Emotion, culture and identity.”
Reoch said that the three factors together could make people forget about their faith and carry out acts that are unbefitting to them, regardless of the faith of the individual.